A Trip Home

There has been rather a long delay between my posts for which I profusely apologise. Various reasons exist as to why there has been said delay. Partly it's due to having moved house. There was also school starting again with the added disruptions of getting back into the routines of teaching and settling in with the new class. However there is also a further reason which is that I found this blog hard to write.
Africa is my land, South Africa my country. It is a place I will always feel at home and no matter where I go, which countries I live in and which language I end up speaking there, there is a part of me that will always be Africa.
That said, I no longer feel comfortable there. Every time I visit home I do so with trepidation and anxiety. Nostalgia is mixed liberally with disappointment as I see how things have degraded. Strikes are constant, water and electricity availability fluctuate too often and violence is sudden and spontaneous.

I was greated in the traditional manner (as far as Johannesburg Airport is concerned) by my luggage being broken. The pull handle had been ripped off and a section of the frame made of thick plastic had been cut through.

What was the airport's response, you may ask? Baggage handling refused to accept responsibility for it and the Ticket Counter (where I was directed next) was void of the person I needed to speak to. Emailing then later, I was told to return the bag to the airport where they'd send it off for repairs - repairs that would take 4-6 weeks. When I informed them that I wouldn't be in the country that long they attempted to offer me a loaner bag.

 

Well two weeks of fighting with them got me a solution. The bag was repaired (badly and with inferior parts) and returned to where I was staying within 4 days. 

Another nasty shock was thrown my way a week into my visit. I had brought a card game with me back from Taiwan, but it turned out I had forgotten some of the cards in Taiwan. I contacted my friend and he posted them to me. I was going to give my copy of the game to a friend of mine.

When the cards arrived the South Africa Revenue Services (SARS) charged me import duties, despite the fact that the envelope was labelled non-dutiable. I fought with the post office people. When they wouldn't budge I got a phone number from them, paid them their pirate fee and went home.

I called the number. It was the postal admin. They gave me a mobile number for SARS. When I tried calling the number the person on the other end kept stopping the call, then turned their phone off.

I called the postal service again. They gave me another number. The person on the end of that number said that I shouldn't have accepted the package if I didn't agree to the charge. They told me that a complaint had to be lodged and four forms completed to argue my case. Then the package had to be sent to SARS head office for them to debate whether I could receive the package without charge. That process, I was told, would take 4-6 months.

I swore. I swore a lot at the man on the other end of the phone and said things that were not favourable for me in the situation. That said, I was livid.

 

Enough of the bad things for now. Let's talk about the good.

Being home was wonderful. Looking out at that clear, crisp blue sky, feeling the wind rushing against my skin without the burden of heavy building looming around me in all directions and eating non-city food was heaven.

 

My first visit home was barely two days before I was in a bus heading for Grahamstown to visit family and catch the second half of the National Arts Festival.  

Grahamstown is a rather quirky place. A university town at its heart, it is the cultural centre of the Eastern Cape. Known as the town that God forgot, (as they have so many churches, almost as if in gesture to call Her back and apologise) Grahamstown is a charming place with a unique character. There is a large concentration of exquisite Victorian, Colonial and Gothic Revivalist architectural styles.

My bus dropped me off at 5:30 in the morning. Ambling up the road in the direction of my brother and sister-in-law's house I came upon my first residents - two donkeys casually eating out of someone's rubbish bins.

While too dark for pictures, I made the effort to track them down later in the day and get some pictures.

 

 

A portion of the fringe market situated behind the Cathedral of St Michael & St George.

However, one must not forget that Grahamstown  is, after all, a university town with all the trappings that such dictate.

The Union Building where tickets can be bought and where a large portion of the  advertising of shows is done. Behind this building stretches the field across which the large marquees are erected to host the festival market.

 

Sadly it seems I have neglected to capture the market save for these two pictures. The first is a series of easily identifiable keyring figures. The second is a piece of Afrikaans wisdom, though clearly not exclusive to their culture.

Fabricate was an exhibition featuring two decades of the work of the Handspring Puppet Company - the company behind the full-scale puppet in the aclaimed stage show War Horse. The collection was both startling and surreal.

The rearing puppet from War Horse along with some of the artists' sketches on the right.

More of said sketches.

The 1820 Settlers' Monument is a large and quite frankly ugly building, supposedly built to resemble a ship, that squats on the top of the hill overlooking Grahamstown like a troll who has given up on life.

The 1820 Settlers' Monument (as seen from town)

A few shots of Rhodes University campus grounds.

 

After a lovely visit catching up with my brother and sister-in-law, as well as  catching a few shows at the festival, I returned home to the Greater Durban Area. Soon after my brother and sister-in-law joined me there, bringing their three wonderful cats to visit. Our parents were about to be baby-sitters as the others had a planned holiday.

My brother working from home.

They were not our only guests. We had many people descending upon our part of the world as our Gran's 90th birthday was upon us. It also coincided with my aunt's and my uncle's birthdays. It was a big occasion for the family.

We went out for dinner, but it seems my camera wasn't too keen on the darkness settings. I managed to grab a few nice pictures though, including this lovely one of my Gran and Nick, one of my English cousins.

My brother and sister-in-law enjoying a drink at my Gran's 90th birthday party.

When I think about my family, it's comforting to know that they always have the essentials for a gathering.

Four cousins with our Gogo (Gran)

I believe the next series of pictures requires an explanation. My Gran is retired, though to state such a thing is likely unnecessary. In her spare time she engages in a wonderful hobby. She trawls charity shops and auctions for little soft toys, brassware and bric a brac. She cleans the items, makes new clothes for the soft toys and then goes to various markets and sells the items. All money that she makes is then turned into cheques for the SPCA and Hospice.

For her 90th a cake was baked for her. Her daughter (my aunt) applied her incredible culinary skills in decorating the cake to perfection.

 

 

The Taiwan MRT Stabbing

So a week ago Taiwan was shocked by an incident that took place on the MRT. A young man (a boy really) aged 20 or 21 boarded the last car of a train. Once the train had left the station he produced two knives and began walking down the cars, stabbing people. There were four casualties. When the train arrived at the next station he alighted and continued to wander around the station, menacing people. "Wander" is the right word here. He wasn't running, nor was he trying to find ways to escape. He knew he would eventually be caught and was fully conscious of what he was doing.

 

 

For Taiwan this truly was a shocking event. Nothing on this scale has happened in a very long time. To a places like Britain, South Africa, Libya, North Korea, the USA (and every country the USA has invaded) four deaths may seem inconsequential, paltry even. No one there would bat an eyelid.
In Taiwan, however, there's very little violence. The crime that exists is mostly white-collar crime in the region of fraud or embezzlements. Violence tends to take the form of passive-aggressiveness.

 

This youth was eventually disarmed by an old man with an umbrella and a few security guards. While being arrested and hauled away he kept asking the guards if he'd get the death penalty.

This youth clearly wanted to shock people and he'd wanted to do so for a while now. Subsequent investigations into his life showed that he'd been saying he'd like to kill people for a few years. He'd also wanted to do "something big".

What annoyed me most about this incident was the media. They jumped on the bandwagon with all the wrong notions. The main media story - which can be found on Youtube, along with some footage from the event - that was played over and over kept mentioning that he was a fan of violent video games.
So what?
Many people play games - violent or otherwise - and it has no affect on them. More people get violent about sports teams, but you don't see them being called into question; probably because they make people too much money. Games are an easy scapegoat, as are music, clothing trends and just about any other fringe interest.

More importantly, the main problem is that people are trying to find causes for his actions without looking at the obvious. Every time an event like this happens anywhere in the world, the media descends to make a huge deal out of it. That's what the assailants want - they wish to be known, to be famous even if only through infamy. They want to be remembered and the only way to do that is to make a huge scene. If it's been done before, then they have to try even harder to be better than the scene before. It's disgusting and it gets boosted to media coverage.

It was after that that I found this article. Strictly speaking this article is about killings in school, but the motivations and causes behind them are the same. The whole article is worth reading, but here's a brief summary of the main point:



When a person goes on a murdering spree, this is what happens.

"Gun control gets the headlines. Mental health care gets the headlines. Violence and video games and misogyny and internet forums and atheism — the list is endless at this point.
Here’s what doesn’t get the headlines: Empathy. Listening to those around you. Even if you don’t like them very much.
Despite being relevant and important discussions, the glamorous headlines are ultimately distractions — they just feed into the carnage and the attention and the fame the killer desired. They are distractions from what is right in front of you and me and the victims of tomorrow’s shooting: people who need help. And while we’re all fighting over whose pet cause is more right and more true and more noble, there’s likely another young man out there, maybe suicidally depressed, maybe paranoid and delusional, maybe a psychopath, and he’s researching guns and bombs and mapping out schools and recording videos and thinking every day about the anger and hate he feels for this world."


A link to the full article

A Chinese Orchestra

A few weeks back I had the pleasure of attending a concert featuring Chinese instruments. There were two parts to the concert separated by an interval.

Part 1

A middle-aged man, who I took to be the head musician and probably the teacher, came on stage and prefaced each song with what appeared to be rather witty dialogue. I cannot confirm that, as my Chinese is still underdeveloped, but the audience (unlike the queen) seemed amused. 
I believe he had a pipa (琵琶) with him, though it may have been a  liuqin (柳琴).

A pipa


 A liuqin

The music was charming and had a quality to it that's hard to pin down. I'm sure my friend with his musical degree could provide the technical words I lack. Needless to say it was a treat.
After a few songs (and jokes) he left, only to return accompanied by a string of thirteen lovely young ladies, each sporting their own Liuqin. They were all dressed in a mock qipao (旗袍) or cheongsam style. Traditionally the qipao is a one-piece dress with cap sleeves and ending in a cut not dissimilar to a pencil skirt. If I recall correctly, only two of the ladies actually wore a proper qipao. Two others wore evening dresses and the rest had a kind of qipao blouse worn with a separate skirt.


 

Sitting in a single, long, curved line they played flawlessly together. They played in perfect harmony even when altering the tempo of the music and they played with incredible speed, their hands seeming to dance across the strings becoming blurs.

After a quick rearranging by the backstage team (and I must commend the backstage team on their speed and efficiency) the head musician returned with an entourage of older musicians. They assembled themselves around a table with various instruments laid out. They had liuqins, pipas, sanxians (三弦) and huqins (胡琴). This stage of the concert also saw the introduction of a few woodwind instruments. There was the sheng (笙) as well as the dizi (笛子) which is a kind of bamboo flute.

  A dizi

A huqin

A sanxian

A sheng

During this time one thing became quite noticeable which put a dampener on the event, but not enough to make me stop enjoying it. Chinese instruments were designed and created to be played individually or in small groups, usually to a small reception. Putting this number of instruments together, whilst trying to amplify their sound to the whole chamber, means that some instruments were almost inaudible.
The Sheng I don't believe I heard above the sound of the strings.

Part 2

We returned after the interval to a complete rearrangement  of the stage. A mini orchestra assembled on stage. The orchestra is a relatively new concept to Chinese history. As such, not all of their instruments are designed to work well in groups. Certain instruments have been borrowed from the western orchestra, like cellos and double-basses.

There was even more excitement when a host of operatic singers lined the back wall, ladies dressed in deep, rich pink and men in tuxedos. This is when it became undeniably clear that we were listening to contemporary music rather than traditional.

The singers didn't sing a song. Rather, they had associated pitch to various words and as they sang these words (or perhaps sounds is a better way of describing them) they would alter their pitch. At first it they were simply changing to pitch to the sound "la".
Later they changed to short sentences in Chinese, each word holding its own pitch.

The strangest part of this was the karaoke section. I don't know what else to call it. No other word seems to fit. Whilst in the middle of a tune two of the elder musicians stood up with mics and began singing a duet. Later in the same song the were replaced by two others. The audience seemed impressed by one of them, as though he was singing tongue-twisters or something in a similar vein. It was interesting, but most confusing. I'm still unsure what I witnessed.

Then, because you can never have enough, the thirteen young ladies from before were brought out and added to the orchestra for the finalé. Though odd, it was a wonderful evening out.